Simons Catering

Mara worked with us on a customized menu for two events - our rehearsal dinner and our wedding reception. Our guests kept raving that the food at our wedding was the best they every had at a wedding, period. We did buffet style - and our guests went up for seconds and thirds. Amazing culinary experience, and Simons uses healthful and local ingredients, which we appreciated. Thank you!!

We had Simon's cater our special farm wedding in June 2017 and it was completely wonderful! The service was timely, accommodating, and very sweet. And the food - the FOOD! We asked for an all vegan feast to feed a bunch of omnivores... everybody left feeling satisfied and in awe of the vegan preparations. Highlights included the hor'deurves, non alcoholic drinks, dessert, and dinner... so really, everything! Mara, the owner, was professional warm and very adaptable when working with us. We are excited to use this caterer for some future special occasion!

Mara and the rest of the Simons team did a really fantastic job catering our wedding. The entire menu was plant-based and vegan, which can be very tricky when serving a predominately non-vegan crowd. Mara and her team heard our concerns and created a delicious and visually appealing menu. Everything was simply beautiful. We heard so much positive feedback from our guests and couldn’t be happier. We also loved that almost everything was locally grown. It all tasted very fresh. They were also extremely pleasant and seamlessly worked with our venue’s staff. Everything during the entire evening went smoothly, including cleanup. I would highly recommend Simons Catering and hope to use them for another event in the future. Our venue was also impressed and said that they will be recommending them to their future guests.

There simply aren't enough positive things that I can say about my experience with the team at Simon's Catering. Our wedding was truly the happiest day of my life, and that is owed in no small part to Mara and her incredible staff. First, the food was absolutely phenomenal. I was told over and over again by my friends and family that it was the best food that they had ever tasted at a wedding. While I agree with them, I would go a step further -- this food was incredible, period. It was totally outside of what you would ever expect for catered food and reached a level of being better than the food at most restaurants. Every single dish was mind-blowing. Some of the appetizers -- particularly the fried cheese curds, which were made specifically for me at my request -- were the best I had ever tasted. Over and over again, I could not believe that the food at my wedding was as amazing as it turned out to be. I can't overstate this enough -- it was beautiful, delicious, plentiful, creative, and customized. It made the day feel so special! It made me so happy! But beyond the food, Mara and her staff made me feel reassured and calm on my wedding day and during all of the planning leading up to it, which is a truly priceless feeling during a time that has so much potential to feel overwhelming. Mara was such a pleasure to deal with leading up to the big day, and when it finally arrived, everything she and her staff did was seamless and perfect. They were so friendly and so professional, I am positive that our guests thought we spent ten times as much on catering as we did. Highest recommendation I can possibly give!

This is not an easy review to write. I'll start with the positive. Mara blew us away at the tasting. The food was great, the prices were significantly under the other quotes we received and she was focused on local/sustainable food which we really cared about. The problem here is that Mara & her team over promised and significantly under delivered. The first disengagement I noticed was during planning about a month prior to the wedding when I could not get Mara to respond to my emails or phone calls. Our other vendors were also having a really difficult time engaging her for coordination. On the day of, she did not show up which was our expectation and which was never communicated otherwise nor did she appropriately plan/prepare her staff to handle the event without her. They were incredibly understaffed, the bar garnishes and mixers were gone half way through cocktail hour, enough glassware wasn't ordered, there wasn't enough fry oil, the food styling that we discussed didn't happen... But, one of my biggest disappointments in all of this, is that the staff did not know what they were serving. We had special dietary restrictions that were requested – when asked, servers could not say what had dairy, what didn’t, what was vegan, what was gluten free, etc. This was the very first thing I asked Mara about when I reached out to her about being our caterer. She also said that she would provide signage to indicate this, which wasn't done. Cleanup was rough on our remaining staff at the end of the night. So much so, that it had to finish in the morning. Their truck left two hours before the event was over and didn't take any trash with it. The kitchen area was left in total disarray. All of this caused both our Wedding Planners and the Rental Company to compromise their contracted services to us in order to help the catering team execute. We received additional bills from these other vendors because of this which were also not insignificant amounts and which Mara was unwilling to cover from her side. The only reason I have not gotten lawyers involved is because I think the lawyer would cost more than this is worth. But the side of me that believes in standing up for what is right in the world did not let this go easily. As we also feel there were contracted services on the catering side that were missed. I tried to work this out with Mara and come to an understanding about what happened. If she had even bothered to respond to my concerns and offer an explanation I would not have written such a candid review, because stuff happens, you know? But given that lack of ownership over the issues and a lack of willingness to do anything to resolve it I was left with no other choice. It's a shame for all that delicious food to be unappreciated because of the execution.

I loved working with Mara from start to finish. She was extremely responsive and obliging with all of our requests, including the somewhat-complicated specialty cocktail we decided on. The menu was the perfect mix of fancy and casual, light and rich, that I was aiming for, and the local Hudson Valley farm sourcing of ingredients was meaningful and delicious. (THE HOME-BAKED BREAD, oh my god!) Many guests told us that ours was the best wedding food they'd ever had, and the staff was so, so sweet and good at their jobs. I would recommend Mara and Carlucci-Simons without reservation.